Matthew Stover

Here was the weapon of a hero. A real hero. Not a playactor. Not a pretend-hero, like Ganner had always been. But this weapon was now in Ganner's hand.

Can't trust a fascist--truth is always your first sacrifice to the welfare of the state

He did understand. Finally, fatally, he did. He had thought he was the master of history, that his fractal world-tree had grown according to his will. He had allowed himself to be deceived.

I don't have to be a hero, he thought in silent wonder. All I have to do is pretend.

A powerful enough metaphor grows its own truth.

"Shit, kid, thinking about that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside, like I just ate a kitten."

Fairy tales--simple stories for simple minds, a breath of air to cool brows overheated by the complexities of real life.

"...I suspect that pain means little to you as your life--but both your life and your pain are very important to me."

The man did not move because only immobility could hurt more than motion: the man held himself still because to move might lessen his suffering, and that he could not bear. For him only pain had meaning.

Caine was no longer the icon of evil, the Enemy of God, the author of all the world's ills. He had become simply what he was: a ruthless, amoral man, now beaten--crushed by the world, just like any other.

Anyone who is of a thoughtful, philisophical cast of mind will occasionaly be struck by the appearance of certain organizing principles of history. The forms these principles seem to take inevitably depends upon one's specific obsession. For a mornachist, history is a struggle of classes of economic civil war. An agriculturalist sees the dynamic of populations, land, and availability of food; a philosopher might speak of the will to power or the will to sythesis; a theologian of the will of God.

It's customary, at times like this, to say a few words. A man shouldn't die with no understanding of why he's been murdered. I do not pride myself on my eloquence, and so I will keep this simple.